Reflection on Educational Experience: Challenges and Benefits

Within this assignment I will be discussing my personal experiences in education as a student and will go into detail about the experiences and struggles that I may have gone through this phase of time. I will be conversing about different theorists such as Skinner, Froebel and Montessori and how their theories apply to practice and will further go into talking about my philosophy of learning. I will also talk about the positive side of education and how children enjoy an activity that they pick themselves.

There are numerous theories in education on how children develop and what is suitable for their learning and the best style that they should be taught. In my personal philosophy for education, I feel the goal of education is to help a child grow into a unique individual who is encouraged to realise their full potential and to make them a confident individual but not just confident in their education but confident in every aspect. I believe that education is like a ladder because it requires modest steps to get to the end objective or even larger steps to reach the goal quicker. My experience of education was very diverse as I have had both positive as well as negative experiences in a classroom with my teachers. The first experience that I will be talking about is my struggle in secondary school in my maths lessons. This experience was negative for me because my teacher used to teach the lesson and go through the power point and teach various things, but he never made sure that everyone understood what he was teaching. He simply wanted to get the subject out of the way so that a new one could begin. This had a detrimental effect on me since I wouldn't fully comprehend the topic we were discussing, and he would swiftly move on. I wouldn't go back to that subject to review and understand it better since I'd have to focus on other subjects that were potentially more difficult in order to keep up with the classwork and avoid falling behind. Although this had impacted me significantly it would have also further impacted the peers around me with learning disabilities such as dyslexia more because it would be a struggle for them to keep up in general so they further would not be able to keep up to the speed that the teacher is going. This would be unfair because some students would be very confident in what they must have learned, but there would be students like me who may not have fully understood and would be afraid to ask for extra help, or if they did ask for help, they might have been asked to stay behind at the end of the day, which they may not be able to do because they have somewhere to go. For example, a student may need to go home and prepare to learn and worship at the mosque. They wouldn't want to get the two things muddled up; therefore, they may prefer not to talk about their problems instead of asking for help. This would have an impact on me since I would receive poor results in my GCSEs, and I could possibly fail and may have to retake the exam. This philosophy is not relevant to my study of education because my teacher did not view and analyse from my perspective. He did not understand that he has gone through the lessons quickly which had resulted in me and some of my peers not understanding the curriculum that had been taught. This links to the behaviourist approach because according to Dr Saul McLeod, behaviourism is different from most other approaches because they view people (and animals) as controlled by their environment and specifically that we are the result of what we have learned from our environment. In my school behaviour was controlled by reward and punishment systems. If a student had behaved, then they would get praised or they would get reward points and as they add up, they would then get a prize at the end of the big assembly. The rewards were instilled into our learning as a form of encouragement to achieve and be hardworking. This is known as positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is encouraging a pattern of behaviour with rewards and praises to get the child to carry on with their effort. For example, if a student is polite or answers the question right, they will be offered a sticker or the option to choose a prize from the 'treasure box.' This would encourage more and more positive behaviour because behaviourists are interested in observable behaviour and behaviour can be measured.

B.F. Skinner had talked about operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is learning how to behave through rewards and punishments because the rewards would make them want to do it again. Classical conditioning is learning through a process that occurs through associations an environment stimulus. An example of classical conditioning is how some children develop a school phobia. This is since classical conditioning influences the formation of emotions. For example, if the child is bullied, the good classroom environment will aid in his or her recovery. If there is a subject that they are avoiding, the educator may have a different method that does not suit the child and may humiliate them. If there is a subject that they are avoiding, it may be generalised across the school. With a variety of ways, classical conditioning can help you unlearn your phobia. During my time in my primary school if us students had showed good behaviour such as helping a teacher out or being polite then we would get a golden ticket which would have our name on and at the end of the week the named would get drawed and picked out. If our names got picked out, then we would get to choose big presents from the box. However, if the punishment or reward system are constantly carried out in a consistent way then it would be pointless because the children would have lost interest as they may see it as a continuous process rather than a reward or punishment system. Social reinforcements are important within a classroom because if a teacher verbally praises their student in front of everyone then the student would want to do it again and again because they would be proud of the compliment that they had received. Their self-esteem would be high, and their phobia can also start to come to an end. Skinner states that “the consequences of an act affect the probability of it occurring again”.

Another key aspect that had helped our classroom is that the teachers let us choose our own activities. The activity reinforces on us because it gives us an opportunity to focus on what we would enjoy more and how it reflected on us. The adults of the classroom allowed the students have free time of their own. This helped the students because once a week they would be getting a break from work that would be repetitive throughout the week for them. Instead of following the curriculum we would enjoy activities through the “golden time” for a few hours of the day and we would get to choose what activity we would want to do rather than it being chosen for us. This is giving the students freedom which encourages them to make the best choices for themselves. This links to nature vs nurture because the activity chosen can be influenced by the people around them because of what the people around them do. For example, at home they may have liked a certain game that they would have played with their parents so they would want to choose that game again and play it with peers and they would oversee the game as they know the rules so they would explain what the rules are for the games and how to play. According to Twinkle play Froebel's theory focuses on child led play as he believed that play is the highest form of human expression in childhood. Some of his key principles for his theory are that the play is vital to help children learn how things work and about the world around them. Another key principle of his theory is that education should focus on what the child can do and not what the child cannot do. This is because the adults will want to see the child's good qualities rather than their flaws. They would do so because they will then work with the child on his or her weak areas. They would not tell the child that they are bad at something since it would hurt their self-esteem. Play develops people from all areas e.g., intellectually because whilst playing the children also learn. According to Twinkle play, Dr Montessori believed that 'play is the work of the child'. This shows that advised that play was key for children to help them make the best choices and perfect their actions or tasks. Children enjoy playing, demonstrating that they would devote all their energy to whatever activity they are engaged in. If a child does not appreciate an activity, they will become distracted and lose interest because it will be dull to them.

Furthermore, to conclude this assignment my background in school has helped me to incorporate many of the things I've seen into my learning. My education progresses from primary to secondary school because I've learned that this is the most crucial phase in developmental learning as we progress from primary to secondary school and encounter different learning styles.